African American Women Artist is the 19th Century
By: Yazmeen Enoch
Introduction
Towards the end of the 19th Century, leading up to the beginning of the World War I, the way that the female body was viewed and depicted differently across the world. America, specifically, have their own way of fashion and art that was directly coordinated by their social and cultural norms during the time period. A large part of America’s population was made up of African Americans, who still had strong ties Africa. Despite having most of their identity stripped from them when coming to America and having limited recourses, most Africans Americans made a way for them to be able to express themselves in art. While there is no doubt that in time of need, art prevails, but where is the art. In the 19thCentury it was already hard enough to be a woman, will little to no rights. But the intersectionality of being both African American and a woman, offered an even greater battle to overcome. Most art made by African American’s and especially women during the 19th cease to exist in history. There is little to no information on any artist is it is due to the fact the 19th Century in American, American American’s were still enslaved in many parts of country. Those who were not enslaved, still not have many or any rights in America by a legal and societal standpoint. This paper will explore two African American women, from two different places in the America who were able to create a name for themselves as artist. In a time where women, especially African Americans, weren’t allowed to have a voice or a place in the art world these two women who had all the odds stacked against them, persevered and has success. Harriet Powers, who was born enslaved, uses quilts to tell the story of the West African ancestors. Edmonia Lewis, born a free woman in the north, becomes the first African American and Native American sculptor.
Harriet Powers
Harriet Powers is best known for stitching story quilts. She was born into slavery on October 29th, 1837 in Athena, Georgia. Growing up she lived on a plantation where the young girls would learn how to sew from either other slaves or from the house mistress. It wasn’t until 1886, almost 21 years after the abolishment of slavery, that Harriet finished her first quilt to be on display at the Clarke County Cotton Fair. Harriet’s style of quilts were a combination of African style of applique with the combination of European style stitching. The first quilt that Harriet made consisted on 299 separate pieces of fabric and depicted different scenes from the Bible and other spirituals. One panel come from the spiritual “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder”. The story of Jacob tells the story of being hunted, homeless, weary of his journey and he is climbing the ladder of slavery. This story resonated with many enslaved people as they were going through the same situation. Harriet also made quits telling the stories from the Bible. One of the stories told in the quilts includes the story Adam and Eve. Enslaved people were not allowed to read to write, so she never read the actual Bible, but instead was told oral stories and sang the songs, and she used those to bring the stories to life in the quilts. The quilt contained a total of 15 panels, illustrating many Bible stories and real-life events. Some of the stories told include “Cold Thursday” of February 10th, 1833 when the temperatures were below zero in Athens, Georgia. Another event that was on the quilt occurred before her birth on November 13th, 1833 called “Night of the Falling Stars” which tell the story of the Leonid meteor storm. Harriet Powers died on January 1st, 1910 in Athens, Georgia at 73 years old. Her quilts tell the story of both folk art and real history capturing events of the 19th Century American in the south. Only two Harriet’s art pieces survived, one hangs in the American History Museum of the Smithsonian and the other hangs in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.
Edmonia Lewis
Another African American woman who told the story of African American life through art is Edmonia Lewis. Edmonia was born to a Haitian father and a Chippewa mother. She was also named “Wildfire” at birth. Edmonia parents died we she was fairly young she was raised from her mother’s sisters in upstate New York. She received her education at Oberlin College in 1859 due to her half-brother who worked and was able to save to finance her education. Being able to go to school was rare opportunity for women and especially women of color. Unfortunately, Edmonia was not able to finish her education because of allegations that she stolen paint brushes, and a picture frame. The charges were dismissed but she was still asked leave the college. She moved to Boston where she met an abolitionist name William Lloyd Garrison, who supported her work. Edmonia was a mentee under the sculptor, Edward Brackett, who taught Edmonia how to sculpt and helped her create her own studio. When it came to sculpting, Edmonia was limited to her learning. Unlike the white male sculptors, Edmonia was not able to base her sculptors on anatomy because those classes were limited only to white men and the select few number of white women who paid to get background knowledge. By the early 60’s Edmonia sculpted clay and plaster medallion of many abolitionist leaders that let her to have some small commercial success. In 1864, Edmonia created a bust of Colonel Robert Shaw, who was a Civil War hero that died leading the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment. That began her most famous piece and she made a lot money off of copies. With this money she was able to move to Rome to work as an artist. While in Rome she created one of her most famous works named “Forever Free”. The sculpture “Forever Free” originally titled “The Morning of Liberty” was created to commemorate the creation of the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery. The sculptor shows a man standing with his fist raised in the air with broken shackles around his wrist and feet. Beside him is a woman kneeling down with her hands clasped together as if she is praying. Both the man and woman are looking up to the sky as if they are thanking God for finally allowing them to be free people. This sculptor is to show victory in facing the adversity of slavery and for hope for a better future.
Attributing Success
While both women are both amazing and revolutionary artist in their respective medium. Their success could not be obtained through their own merit. Both women were born relative close to each other, Powers 1837 and Lewis 1844, so were culturally facing the similar oppression of being colored in America. Once could say that Edmonia Lewis when to have a most “successful” and longer career, and that is only attributed to one factor; the location of where the women grew up. Edmonia’s success could also be attributed to the fact that she was half Native American of Chippewa decent. While Native Americans has no better experience that African Americans, in a way it was still better to be part Native American than it was to be fully African American. While the entire country of America was dealing with racism, the south, where Harriet was born, were enslaving people. Whereas the north, where Edmonia was born, was still racist but African Americans were not enslaved. By that notion alone, Edmonia was exposed to many more opportunities that Harriet was never offered, such as an education or a chance to study art.
If it wasn’t for an art teacher named Jennie Smith, Harriet Powers quilts may have been lost forever similar to most art that newly freed African Americans made. Smith asked to buy the quilt from Powers, which at first Powers declined and stated it was not for sale, until one day she arrived at Smith’s front door “with the precious burden in her lap encased in a clean flour sack, which was still further enveloped in a crocus sack. She offered it for ten dollars… after giving [Smith] a full description of each scene with great earnestness and deep piety she departed, but has been back several times to visit the darling offspring of her brain” (Writing Women’s History). It wasn’t until Smith exhibit the quit in the Negro Building at Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, in 1895, that the quilt began to gain traction, and people like Lorine Curtis Driver and Lucine Finch began to have commentary on the quilt based of a photo taken at the exhibit.
The Bible Quilt that Driver and Finch gave commentary on has a background fabric of “watermelon pink with green bars to frame each scene” (Writing Women’s History). Some of the stories told in the Bible Quilt include a scene from Jacobs Ladder “the wings of the angel are rose colored” (Writing Women’s History). In the scene of the Holy Family the “little Jesus is in white, Mary in pale blue, and Joseph in speckled calico” (Writing Women’s History). Diver was fascinated by a lot of the colors in the quilts including “purple and yellow polka-dot animals, the black and while stripped peacock, and the red calico blood stitched onto the bright pink background” (Writing Women’s History). Thought the colors of these animals and people are quite unrealistic, it is obvious that Harriet was using the fabric that she was able to come across, which was most likely the scraps of a seamstress. Despite using wild colors, Powers was able to use her artistry to tell amazing stories through her quilts. Because of Jennie Smith buy Harriet Powers quilts out of admiration and keep the quilt in good condition, we are able to know who Harriet Powers is and how talented she was.
Edmonia Lewis was able to have more worldly success because she was able to receive an education and be able to move out of America. While in Rome, Lewis found a group of American women sculptors including Harriet Hosmer, Emma Stebbins, Margaret Foley, Vinnie Ream Hoxie, and Anne Whitney. Lewis joined this group of amazing women with whom she lived, sketched, studied, and socialized with for the rest of her career. Rome was a popular place amongst artist to travel to and live in because:
Rome offered ready access to the paintings, sculptures, and ruins of the Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque past. To the sculptor in particular, Rome provided an ample supply of materials from marble quarries, as well as skilled labor to assist with carving… [Rome] also provided American artist with an extended market, and amplified patronage among the leisured and moneyed class of tourists, celebrities, and socialites that sought out the haunts of artists on their quests for cultural accomplishment. (The Death of Cleopatra)
In addition to other great art, Lewis created her most popular work of art to date while living in Rome. The Death of Cleopatra, completed in 1976, is a neoclassical sculpture carved in pristine white Italian marble telling the famous story of Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, allowing herself to be bitten by the venomous asp after she loses her crown. Lewis sculptor is special in it’s own rights due to the fact Cleopatra is depicted as prideful and enjoying her death, which is a huge contract as to other interpretations of her death. Lewis created Cleopatra to look as if she is almost enjoying her death. Her head is held back and she is in a relaxed state. The Asp is wrapped around her right arm, while her left is dangling to the side of chair. The two heads on the arms of the chair are supposed to symbolize the twin that Cleopatra had with Mark Anthony. One particularly interesting thing about how Lewis carved Cleopatra, is that the Queen looks almost as if she is aroused by this act. While Cleopatra’s head is held back, her mouth is gapped open almost as if she is smiling. You can also see that Cleopatra’s nipples are erected, showing that she is getting some sort of stimulation out of the whole act. Lewis’s interpretation of the death of Cleopatra, was revolutionary in creating as space for African American during the post-Reconstruction movement.
Harriet Powers and Edmonia Lewis were able to persevere and was able to create art and tell their story through art in their own perspective mediums. Harriet Powers used her quilting skills to tell real life events and able to put all the bible stories and folktales that she was told growing up into her art work. Edmonia Lewis rose up through adversity and became a historic sculptor. Through skill, dedication, and family and friends who supported her, she was able to expand her artwork and create pieces that will last forever. These women set the tone for African American artist to succeed after them.
Sources
Biography.com Editors. “Edmonia Lewis.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, September 15, 2020. https://www.biography.com/artist/edmonia-lewis.
Dasal, Jennifer. “Episode #65: The Coolest Artists You Don’t Know: Edmonia Lewis (Season 7, Episode 5).” ArtCurious. ArtCurious, June 1, 2020. https://www.artcuriouspodcast.com/artcuriouspodcast/65.
“Edmonia Lewis.” Smithsonian American Art Museum. Accessed December 11, 2020. https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edmonia-lewis-2914.
Eldridge, Alison, ed. “Edmonia Lewis.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., September 13, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmonia-Lewis.
George, Alice. “Sculptor Edmonia Lewis Shattered Gender and Race Expectations in 19th-Century America.” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, August 22, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sculptor-edmonia-lewis-shattered-gender-race-expectations-19th-century-america-180972934/.
Gold, Susanna W. “The death of Cleopatra / the birth of freedom: Edmonia Lewis at the new world’s fair.” Biography 35, no. 2 (2012): 318+. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed December 10, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A306971012/AONE?u=temple_main&sid=AONE&xid=27942661.
HICKS, KYRA E. “Powers, Harriet.” In The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 23: Folk Art, edited by CROWN CAROL and RIVERS CHERYL, 386-88. University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Accessed December 11, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469607993_crown.211.
Lewis, Edmonia. “The Death of Cleopatra.” Smithsonian American Art Museum. Accessed December 11, 2020. https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/death-cleopatra-33878.
Payne, Elizabeth Anne, ed. 2011. Writing Women’s History : A Tribute to Anne Firor Scott. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Accessed December 10, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Photograph. 1885 – 1886 Harriet Powers’s Bible Quilt. National Museum of American History. Treasures of American History online exhibition. National Museum of American History. Accessed December 10, 2020. https://www.si.edu/object/1885-1886-harriet-powerss-bible-quilt%3Anmah_556462.
“POWERS, Harriett.” georgiawomen, 2016. https://www.georgiawomen.org/copy-of-pauley-frances-freeborn.
Worteck, Susan Willand. “”Forever Free”: Art by African-American Women, 1862-1980 an Exhibition.” Feminist Studies 8, no. 1 (1982): 97-108. Accessed December 7, 2020. doi:10.2307/3177581.